No surprise, Rob was a frat boy as well....

Hazing- the abuse of fraternity members as a part of an initiation- is supposed to build loyalty to the group. But how does being abused by a group engender loyalty to the group? It seems counter-intuitive.

The effectiveness of hazing has its foundation in the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance, or Effort Justification

In order to join a hazing fraternity, potential members must endure a gauntlet of abuse. They start by believing membership will have some reward, then they are subject to abuse.

Once they submit to the first minor abuse they have 2 options:

1) Admit they were foolish to allow themselves to submit to the abuse and walk away.
2) Rationalize that they ARE reasonable people, and as a reasonable person they allowed the abuse because the reward of belonging to the group is so valuable that is worth the abuse.

As the abuse is repeated option 1 becomes exponentially more difficult... and the perceived value of the group is increased by those that continue to submit.

This weeds out the most independent minds, and greatly inflates the value of the group in the minds of the ones that remain. "Why of COURSE being a part of this elite group of inebriated guys is IMMENSELY valuable! Were it not valuable I would never have submitted to such abuse- For I am an intelligent independent person! QED."

The best, most rational course is to never submit.

The same thing has occurred with Trump- many of us pointed it out explicitly to Rob each time he had to ratchet down his standards and intellect to keep following Trump... it fell on deaf ears.

At first Rob liked Trump because he would shake things up, so he was enthusiastic.

Then Trump made outrageous lies - 'Mexico will pay for the Wall'...
Rob had two choices:
1)He could say "Well, that guy is a lying fool- I will look elsewhere for a candidate"
or
2) "Sure that is silly, but I wouldn't support a silly candidate, so its just part of his shtick, and a sign that he is unconventional- and unconventional is just what this country needs!"

And with that first act of submission he was lost.

When Trump said racist things, Rob had to rationalize: "I am not a racist person, I would never support a racist candidate, therefore- no matter what Trump says it cannot be racist"

When Trump hired actual neo-Nazis Rob had to Rationalize yet again...

Access Hollywood tape? "I am not a bad person, I would never vote for a sexual predator- therefore what I heard Trump confess with my own ears was simply locker room banter"

And so on and so on...

Rob is not unique- you see the same pattern over and over again in all nations that fall into fascism... one atrocity leads to another, and each time it becomes easier...it becomes NORMAL...

The only way to guard against it is to never allow yourself to submit, never stand for that first line being crossed. That is why fascism's first first step is to silence the independent thinkers. Sometimes by just simply intimidating them into silence, other times by executing them... or- as we see now- by discrediting them- making the intellectuals the 'evil elite'- the 'sore losers', the reporters are actually 'Threats to the American People'... Obvious facts are 'fake news'...

Once you allow yourself to submit to that first atrocity then you are likely lost. It will require more and more internal strength to escape the trap each time you allow that line to be crossed.

Your ONLY hope once you have crossed that first threshold is to draw a line in advance... to say "ok, we have gone this far- and yeah part of me is uneasy about where this going, so to be safe I will NOT allow myself to support any of these possible next steps that I- as a rational person- can see would be dangerous." THAT offers you an out... you can tell yourself:

"I am a rational person, and I set these rational limits and I decided that if these lines were crossed I would stand up against it- and that is what I will do"

It lets you escape the trap without admitting that you allowed yourself to be dragged down so far- you get to frame it as YOUR action, your strength instead of your foolishness.

Sure its a crutch, but the alternative... well, that is the abyss.